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Friday, July 6, 2012

Secular Humanism Debunked

Get the MP3 of "The God Solution" show #66 - "Secular Humanism Debunked" below! Get all our previous shows here. We are on the air Sunday mornings at 8:30 am MST. "The God Solution" is an interactive show that will discuss answers to humanity's questions about God and God's answers for humanity's questions. I really hope you'll tune in and listen and share the program with friends as well. If you live in the area listen to the show on 91.9 or 93.9 FM. If you don't live in the area, feel free to check out the show online at http://kdur.org/ and archived here. Get today's notes here. If you like the show please e-mail KDUR at kdur_pd@fortlewis.edu. Thanks a ton and tune in every Sunday at 8:30 am!

4 comments:

Do you think this is a charitable, sensitive portrayal of Secular Humanism Nate? The notes and show (from what I heard, finish it later perhaps) seem, amongst other things, to set up the worst of secular humanism and then proceed as if one debunked all strands of humanistic thought. In the same way some secular humanists set up the worst of Christianity and religion in general in order to disparage it critically. I think one will find that not all Secular Humanists are militant new atheists, but rather are quite sensitive and careful in religious matters.

Caleb. Of course humanists can be good. When they are good they are simply following the law of God that He put in them and that is intrinsic to all human beings. They do not, however, have any objective basis for claiming moral absolutes exist nor for holding anyone to them. I'm not saying they can't be moral, just that when they are it is not a result of humanism because secular humanism provides no objective basis for morality. This could be said of all sorts of different belief systems. Hope that clears things up a bit. Thanks for commenting!

Right I am afraid my comment was unclear, I think you treated humanists non-charitably in intellectual manner rather then moral ones. I would hope (though some humanists will say things like this) that most humanists will not accept statements such as: "Tolerance and diversity as long as you believe like they do.", "Impose our Secular Humanist ideals on them before they are able to think critically but donʼt allow their parents to have a role.", "indoctrinate everyone, starting with the young, with the Secular Humanist agenda.", "empirical verification is the glue that...holds the tenets secular humanism together."

At the very least I don't hold any of those beliefs, though I do consider myself a humanist. Moral education could be instantiated without it being indoctrination, a fully empricist/scientist view of the world is false etc.

Though some humanists say things like this it seems as though they are of the more dogmatic variety, so in criticizing them one is doing a disservice to humanism. In the same way that by criticizing dogmatic religious individuals one does a disservice to region. I should be clear that it's a disservice intellectually. Such persons don't put forward the best case for humanism or religion, as such rebutting them won't show the falsity of either.

As a side note I should add that not all humanists will subscribe to metaphysical naturalism. There is a clear sense in which an agnostic about God can be a humanist. One can be also an atheist without being a naturalist while being a humanist ;) I tried to tease out a definition of mere humanism in post: http://calebscblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/mere-humanism.html

Caleb, Thanks for the reply. Those comments (some are paraphrases) come from the Secular Humanist Declaration. I expounded on some of those articles and their implications as well. Obviously not all secular humanists espouse all of those ideas but they do constitute the most current Humanist self description. Getting away from the semantics of the debate, what objective basis for morality can a humanist possible come up with? I'll check out your post. Thanks again. Your friend, Nate

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